Walt hangs up the phone, takes off his watch, and places it on top of the pay phone

Meaning

Vince says that there’s a “cool artsy-fartsy reason” and a “practical reason” for this shot

We shot that teaser way back in Episode 501, the beginning of our final 16 episodes, and we had Walt in the Dennys making the number 52 on his 52nd birthday and he was not wearing a watch. Then, later on we came up with this fun moment where — on his 51st birthday Jesse gives Walt that beautiful watch and he has worn it ever since and we thought to ourselves, uh oh, we better get this right.

But then the artsy-fartsy reason is, hopefully you don’t think it’s too artsy-fartsy, is that I think he’s been wearing it all this time and he knows he’s heading for the end game. He hangs up the phone and he looks at his watch and he remembers that his now arch nemesis — or one of his many arch nemeses — Jesse has given it to him and he doesn’t need it anymore so he takes it off and he leaves it.